Death and Sherlock Holmes
by macgyvershe
Summary: One shot. Can Sherlock deduce Death? Surely the world's only consulting detective can if anyone can!


**Death and Sherlock Holmes**

John and Sherlock had been following leads into the lower levels of London's more dire and delinquent, dirt skirts. They were on alert moving in stealth mode. When from afar a car came out of nowhere, no lights as it rushed towards them going full throttle in an ancient alley that had no alcoves or cross lanes.

"Jump up, Sherlock!" John indicated the decrepit pipes that hung hap-hazardously above them; their only escape.

Sherlock leapt. Caught hold of a pipe that bearly held his slight weight, but John?! John would never reach this high. Instantly, with no thought for himself Sherlock lowered down as far as he was able.

"GRAB ME." Sherlock screamed. John flung himself upward catching Sherlock's legs and holding on as the car careened toward them. Sherlock hauled the two of them up straining and screeching as he sought to bring John up as far as possible. Then the pipe broke just as the car was passing below and they fell, scattered by the speed of the car. Both coming to rest against a dirty wall littered with the jetsam of the cities lowly creatures, Sherlock, still conscious, pulls his battered body towards John.

"John, John talk to me?" Sherlock gathers him up. John is completely limp, like a broken doll without life. "Oh, god, no John, John, John, NO!" Sherlock pulls the browning from John's back and shoots into the air, then reaches for his mobile with one hand as he tenderly holds John to his breast. "Shite, no signal."

Sherlock bit off his glove and tentatively places his fingers over John's pulse point; bearly there.

"John, don't do this, please John." Then Sherlock felt it. His vision was darkening around the edges, as if he were looking down a long dark tunnel. "NO, NO!" He focuses his brain on staying. He can't leave John now this was not to be endured. In agony, his mind reeling and shuttering as he strove to remain conscious, he places his temple next to John's; holding his lover with all his waning strength. "John, I will not leave you. John let me in." The long tunnel closes with finality and Sherlock enters the blackness.

(-_-)

Sherlock woke to another place. This was underground, warm, the air smelled of moist earth and the natural mild decay that came with a death deluded by time. He opened his eyes, he still held John in his tight embrace. He touched the pulse point looked for the rise of John's chest; for breath. Nothing. "No, John, don't you leave me." He clasped John to his breast and began to rock and keen his sorrow.

"Fear not, Sherlock Holmes. John is not dead, we exist between breaths and heart beats here. We are in a point of time that he has not reached yet.

Sherlock turned to the sound of a deep bass voice that was rich in tone and rumbled with authority. Unpredictably the voice came from a young man, no more than twenty. Tall and much more slender than Sherlock was, but whose hair was like spun sunlight and he was dressed all in white leathers; a tunic affair with long pants that ended in soft white leather boots that came up to his knees. He had a dancer's body, graceful and strong, his beauty shown against the rich browns of the earthen cavern walls.

The young man came forward and Sherlock tightened his hold upon John as the man sat next to him in a relaxed pose. He looked intensely at John.

"Do you know who I am Sherlock?" The young man turned his attention to Sherlock. His silver eyes like twin mirrors that reflected light from an unknown source.

"My mind is overthrown." Sherlock said never taking his eyes from the man in white. "I can only imagine that my mind no longer does my bidding.

"If you believed that your mind was not overthrown, who would you surmise me to be?" The man in white spoke, his deep voice such a counterpoint to his great beauty and youthfulness.

"I would call you Death. Come to take John and me away." Sherlock said without hesitation. "But that is highly unlikely; you are most properly the creation of a damaged thought.

Death smiled then and Sherlock was devastated by his own deduction.

"You are nearly correct," Death stated. "But I come for your companion and not for you."

Sherlock moved to stand and bring John away from this apparition, but his body failed him, miserably.

"You can't take John, without taking me. We are bonded together." Sherlock said the look of agony on his face was unmistakable.

"He is beneath you, Sherlock, your star rises and will continue to shine brightly." Death spoke softly and his eyes never left Sherlock's.

"Never, wherever he goes, I will follow him," Sherlock said determined.

"That is why you are here," Death said. "Your mind so strong you willed yourself to enter in where no man could. I will take him now. You need not worry he will rest easy in my arms."

"Never," Sherlock barked – a mad dog sound that rifled from his mouth. His eyes wide, filled with anger and dissolution.

Death stood and in his arms John hung lax and limp.

Sherlock sat bereft of John's weight and unable to accept his terrible loss for he can still feel John in his arms.

"Wait," Sherlock commanded! "There is a deduction here to rend from your actions. Death comes to take John Watson, takes John from the arms of love. Death finds the soldier/doctor appealing, desirous, he takes what he can, when he can. You think you love him more than I. You think that you can seduce his affection from me. He will never find you in his heart. You know this to be true."

"Ah, so astute, yes I find his loyalty, his bravery, and his charms enticing, but no matter he is mine, Sherlock."

"Then tell me why John is not awake here? How many men have come into your realm unbidden? Answer me?" Sherlock demands but then finds his own answers in his questions. "He is not awake because he is not here. No man has come here before me. I, alone, have come of my own will and desire."

"Very strong, you mind is strong; you will not be an easy man to kill." Death smiles without showing mirth.

"I know you. I have studied you; your vagaries, your cold corpses, the indelicate entrance and exit wounds of your design. I know you better than any man, Death. I will not be tricked by your false charades. I have come here of my own free will and I will not relinquish John, not to you, not to anyone. So do you worse, or let him go. I can't stay your hand, but I will not let John go alone. He will never be alone again."

Death turned then, a smile of minor defeat upon his lips. "You are not an easy man, Sherlock Holmes. I swear that I do covet what you taste so easily. You have tipped my hand. I did try to fool you. If you had relinquished your hold on him for but a breath, he would have been mine. The hour is late; I have other lovers to dispatch. _**Au revoir, mon**_ _**seulement amant***__**,**_ till that time when you will not have the strength of will to thwart me."

Sherlock sighed in relief. John was ever in his arms, never having left his embrace. He brought his forehead to John's and kissed the weathered lines there. He closed his eyes in peace.

(-_-)

"Sherlock. Sherlock, come back to me," John demanded in hushed tones. Small, strong hands caressed his face in loving touches. "Come back, love." John soothed and Sherlock opened his eyes to find his doctor/soldier/lover distressed by his absence.

"Oh it's good to see the welcome in your eyes," John murmured. They held each other as the sirens sounded far off, headed straight for them.

"You scared the life out of me," John said with good humor.

"Ah, John, I'd never do that," Sherlock replied. His mouth prepared for one of John's kisses.

_From the French -*good bye, my only lover_


End file.
